Star Indian cricketer Virat Kohli and his Bollywood-actor wife Anushka Sharma reportedly plan to move to London with their children.

The startling revelation by Kohli’s childhood coach Rajkumar Sharma came at a time when the Indian test cricket team was warming up for the Test series in Australia.

The now-retired tennis star Sania Mirza was among the first Indian sports stars to have a second home in Dubai after she married Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik. It’s unclear if she still maintains her Dubai villa after they legally separated.

Several film stars from north and south of the country own properties in Dubai, a go-to destination for the wealthy from around the world.

While Indian media lapped up the frenzy created by the disclosure about Kohli’s impending move to London, the reported relocation is in tandem with the surge in high-net-worth individuals (HNI) leaving India by the thousands.

The profile of Indian migrants has been rapidly changing over the years from those seeking greener pastures and a better life to the uber-rich, who move for reasons their native land is struggling to come to terms with.

The ever-increasing migration of HNIs who head to countries as diverse as the US to island nations in the Caribbean, or Singapore and the United Arab Emirates closer to home, comes at a time when India is on an ambitious growth trajectory, braving frequent hiccups.

A burgeoning middle class driven by economic reforms riding on the backbone of its information technology prowess doesn’t seem to be influencing the highly aspirational HNIs to stay in the country. Instead, thousands have already left and even relinquished their Indian passports.

Early Indians always loved crossing the ocean for trade. The Chola Empire in present-day Tamil Nadu in the south had a well-structured navy that sailed for trade and on military missions in the first millennium AD.

In the modern era, people from Punjab in the north and Gujarat in the West moved to the West, while those from Kerala down South migrated by the thousands to the oil-rich Gulf countries for purely economic reasons. The British Raj migration of the rather more educated Indians to British colonies predated the migration after Independence in 1947.

While most of the migrants to the West have since adopted the citizenships of their host countries, the Gulf migrants have always retained their Indian passports since the Gulf Arab states very rarely permitted naturalization or even citizenship by birth.

The recent phenomenon that adds worry lines in India pertains to the uber-rich shipping out along with their wealth and families in the backdrop of the rosy picture painted by the government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Indian Parliament’s lower house (Lok Sabha) was informed in February 2024 that over 1.8 million Indian nationals had renounced their citizenships since 2011. While the number could be very small for a country of 1.4 billion people, it’s by no means something to be ignored since a good majority of them are highly educated, wealthy, and upwardly mobile men and women.

But what was even more alarming was the fact that these Indians took up citizenship in 135 countries, many of which nowhere close to India in terms of Gross Domestic Product, economic growth rate or the IT prowess that the South Asian giant has attained over the past two decades.

Hence the question: Why are so many Indians leaving their motherland and even surrendering their passports?

Affluent Indians appear to be unmindful of India’s own growth story fueled by IT, fintech, manufacturing, real estate, and tourism. If not major economies such as the US, EU nations, or Singapore, they are ready to ship to Caribbean states like Antigua and Barbuda that offer citizenship against investments.

Many utilize the Golden Visa offered by the UAE, which is closer to home, and Spain that offers residency via significant investments.

Not short of wealth, these Indians readily accept offers to resettle abroad with their families.

This kind of aspirational migration by the wealthy is very different from those who move overseas for better wages, lifestyle, and future of their children.

A clear-cut answer to the ceaseless exodus of the affluent would require an in-depth study either by the Indian government or some competent body. But a cursory look at the scenario unfolding in the world’s most populous nation and one of the fastest-growing major economies of the world would reveal a canvas dotted with serious issues back home in spite of the intensely advertised growth story.

Densely populated metropolises, vehicular traffic nightmares in most cities overloaded with motor vehicles, air and noise pollution that have reduced their cities to living hell, the utter disregard for civic discipline, poor waste management, and deep-rooted corruption are among the reasons, other than the bureaucratic red tape that has yet to entirely loosen its grip, driving out the affluent.

The much-vaunted ‘ease of doing business’ promised by Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party-led government has not entirely borne fruit. In fact, it is the Communist-ruled southern state of Kerala, the antithesis of the Hindu-nationalist BJP, that topped the latest ease of doing business rankings released by the federal government in September 2024.

Its neighboring Karnataka state, home to India’s main IT hub, Bengaluru, found itself at the 12th position, even behind traditional laggards from the north. Apart from being India’s top IT hub, Bengaluru’s other distinction is rather unenviable since it’s among the world’s top 10 most congested cities.

Creaky infrastructure in cities like Bengaluru that is plagued by a high density of population fueled by uncontrolled internal migration from the northern and eastern states, extremely dangerous air quality in the national capital New Delhi, a rising crime rate, and a general lack of well-being in all the cities are believed to be among the reasons fuelling the migration of the wealthy.

Modi and his BJP-led National Democratic Alliance that rode to power in 2014 on the hope of providing a cleaner and more efficient governance doesn’t check too many boxes for the aspirational and affluent Indian.Thousands of kilometres of world-class roads and highways connecting the huge country, swanky airports and train stations built by Modi and his team, have not cut the ice among the super rich who, for sure, have the money to buy such experiences elsewhere in the world.

A generation that doesn’t shy away from running their businesses in India from the Business Bay in Dubai, the financial hub of Singapore or even Trump Tower in the US, is ever-ready to emigrate at the drop of a hat.

So, whether Kohli and his family move to London or not, India’s super wealthy are on the move, and they are moving in big numbers.